Legal Protection of the Rights of the Batak Toba Customary Law Community to Customary Forests in Samosir Regency in the Perspective of Environmental Law and the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples

This study examines the legal protection of the rights of the Toba Batak customary law community over customary forests in Samosir Regency from the perspective of environmental law and human rights. The fundamental problem that is studied is the normative gap between national legal guarantees and the conditions of legal uncertainty experienced by the Batak Toba customary law community due to the lack of the formation of a Regional Regulation on the recognition of customary law communities as required by Article 67 paragraph (2) of Law Number 41 of 1999 concerning Forestry. This study uses a normative juridical method that is prescriptive with a legislative, conceptual, and case approach, using the framework of Philipus M. Hadjon's legal protection theory and John Rawls' theory of justice. The results of the study show that although the normative foundation for the protection of the rights of the Batak Toba customary law community has been progressive starting from the 1945 Constitution to the Constitutional Court Decision Number 35/PUU-X/2012, it cannot be fully operationalized effectively because it depends on Regional Regulations that have not yet been formed, so that preventive and repressive legal protection has suffered systemic failures. This study concludes that the fulfillment of the state's obligation to provide meaningful legal protection for the Toba Batak indigenous people is not only a juridical demand but also a demand for justice that cannot be postponed.